The present invention relates to the protection of persons proximate to an explosion.
More particularly, the invention provides an array of partitions, and a method, arranged to attenuate blast from an explosion on one side of a partition and thereby protect or at least reduce the severity of injury of people on the far side of said partition(s).
A known terrorist tactic used against populations in Colombia, Indonesia, Lebanon, Ireland, Israel, the Philippines, Northern Spain and other countries is to detonate an explosive device among a crowd of people, the aim being to kill and injure as many as possible so as to draw attention—if not sympathy—to their cause or hatreds. Such explosion may be set off by a timing device, radio telephone or manually in the case of a suicide bomber. Security services have difficulty in preventing such attacks, due to the problems of identifying a terrorist among many thousands of other people going about their daily activities. Furthermore, it is not possible economically to place a security guard in every bus, bus shelter, school, kindergarten, large building, store and street where people congregate, nor is it possible to know in advance when and where attacks will be executed.
In Israel, public transportation vehicles in particular have been the subject of many attacks. A Hebrew language newspaper “BASHOVUA” 17 Oct. 2002, in an article “Drivers in the line of fire” reports that between 1948 and 2002 there have been 39 attacks against buses causing 270 fatalities and many more wounded and disabled, some for life.
Well known in the prior art are taxis fitted with a partition separating the passenger and driver compartment. The partition is intended primarily to prevent the passenger(s) from attacking the driver, and do not relate to explosive blast protection.
Hammerton in UK Patent Application 2 275 281 discloses a stud partition which is claimed to be resistant to bullets or bomb blast. The partition is intended for installation in or around a building. Because of its weight and volume the partition is unsuitable for use in vehicles.
A removable partition intended for vans and station wagons is disclosed by Mckenzie in U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,856. The panel has a bowed forward configuration and is intended primarily to prevent persons or objects hitting the driver in the event of emergency braking or of a collision.
In practical terms advance information can prevent only some but not all attacks. What can be done is to arrange areas where attacks are likely in a manner to reduce casualties resulting from explosive charges. A patent search failed to produce any relevant documents on the subject of applying such ideas to public transportation vehicles. In particular nothing was found relating to the reduction of casualties in passenger bus bombings.
It is therefore one of the objects of the present invention to fill a gap in prior art blast protective devices and to provide a partition array to reduce casualties in case of an explosion in a previously defined space.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a blast-protective partition array for passenger buses, while continuing to allow free movement along the length of the vehicle.